History
The group was originally established by the Philippine military in 1986 to guard against the spread of communist guerrillas in Misamis Occidental, Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur provinces. The first leader, chosen directly by the military, was Ongkoy Parojinog, who allegedly used the group both for its expressed purpose as well as to conduct illegal activities. Parojinog was later killed by Philippine soldiers. When the group was officially disbanded in 1988, they continued to operate as an organized crime syndicate.
Over time, the group grew, with other gangs using the name Kuratong Balelang to cover their own activities. Eventually, the group splintered into multiple, smaller groups headquartered in various cities around the region. The groups are involved in a variety of illegal activities, including robberies, smuggling, kidnapping, murders, extortion, the drug trade, and illegal gambling. According to the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, that part of the groups strength is that it is protected by both local and national government officials.
Read more about this topic: Kuratong Baleleng
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker’s body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers’ intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)